Recall petitions target Frederick mayor, four town trustees

Frederick's mayor and four of its six other Town Board of Trustees members are being targeted by two sets of recall petitions.

Mayor Tony Carey and Trustees Donna Hudziak and Fred Skates are the focus of one of those efforts, with separate petitions charging that each of them "has lost touch with the changing demands of our local government."

A separate effort is seeking the recalls of Trustees Rocky Figurilli and Salvatore "Sam" DeSantis, accusing them of voting against developments "that would help to insure the financial sustainability of our community."

Frederick resident Richard "Rusty" O'Neal is a leader in the effort to get the signatures needed to schedule a special election on the issue of recalling Carey, Hudziak and Skates. O'Neal said on Monday that backers of that drive object to the mayor and those two trustees voting in support of a proposal to develop a four-story apartment building downtown and a separate proposal for a drive-in restaurant on Tipple Parkway that O'Neal said will be too close to a residential neighborhood.

The petitions also complain that Carey, Hudziak and Skates voted to adopt a 2017 town budget that will require dipping into the town's savings accounts to cover its spending.

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Carey, who's been Frederick's mayor since April 2012 and was re-elected last year, declined comment on Monday. He said he'll issue a statement when the petition signatures are counted and verified and the town clerk determines whether there are enough to force a recall election.

Hudziak, who was elected to a four-year term in April 2014, said many of the things she's heard from constituents that they've been told about hers, Carey's and Skates' votes — and those board members' reasons for them — are untrue.

"They've been told some things that are totally false," Hudziak said, adding that if the accusations "were true, I'd say recall us, too."

Skates, who also started a four-year term in April 2014, could not be reached for comment.

The petitions to recall Figurilli and DeSantis, both of whom were elected to four-year terms in April 2016, state that if they remain in office, "we can be confident in the fact that the sign on the front door of the Town of Frederick will state 'Closed for Business.'"

Michael Schiers — who served on the town board from 2004 to 2008 and was unsuccessful in his bid to return in last year's election — is one of the people leading the petition drive against DeSantis and Figurilli.

Schiers said on Monday that the two had gotten onto the board "with kind of a prior agenda. Anything dealing with growth, they're voting against."

Schiers said Figurilli and DeSantis "can't seem to work with anyone else on the board."

Figurilli said on Monday that he didn't have an immediate comment about any of the specific complaints the petitioners have raised.

Figurilli said he's drafted a letter to Frederick residents that he may publish soon — one in which he has written: "I would hope most residents would want to find out more facts of what is really going on in their town government" and "not just go on hearsay."

DeSantis could not be reached for comment on Monday.

O'Neal, a Frederick Planning Commission member, has challenged the legality of the actions taken in the Board of Trustees' 4-3 votes supporting the proposed apartment building at Fifth Street and Frederick Way and the proposed Sonic drive-in on Tipple Parkway.

Carey, Hudziak, Skates and Trustee Laura Brown cast the majority votes. O'Neal said Brown isn't a subject of his recall effort because she had "engaged with the public" and went out of her way to explain her positions before voting for them.

Hudziak, a former Frederick Planning Commission member, said the majority's approved variances for those two projects complied with the town code and state law.

Frederick Town Clerk Meghan Martinez said she has not gotten a firm figure of how many valid recall petition signatures would be required for the mayor and each of the four trustees that are the subjects of the recall effort. But O'Neal said it is his understanding that the law requires signatures have to equal at least 25 percent of the number of votes cast for that person in the election where they won their current terms.

Carey, for example, got 583 votes in the April 2016 election, one in which he was unopposed, according to election last year's election results posted on the town clerk's website. The petitions to set an election to recall the mayor, thus, would apparently have to contain at least 146 valid signatures.

O'Neal said petition circulators have collected at least 320 signatures each on the petitions to recall Carey, Hudziak and Skates. The completed petitions for those three have to be turned in by 5 p.m. Friday.

The drive to recall Figurilli and DeSantis started several weeks after the effort against Carey Hudziak and Skates, and Martinez said the completed Figurilli and DeSantis petitions are due 5 p.m. May 26.

Schiers declined to say how many signatures have been collected so far on the petitions to recall Figurilli and DeSantis — a number he did not plan to give out "until we turn them in."

Martinez said that once she gets the completed petitions, she will have five business days in which to review them to determine whether there are sufficient signatures.

If the signatures are sufficient, the Board of Trustees will determine the date of a special election, but that date can be no more than 90 days from the date of the board meeting when the election date is set, Martinez said.

Martinez said it would cost Frederick an estimated $20,000 to hold a special election.

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